Where:
Huntsville, Alabama - USA
Who:
Tim O'Brien
- Guitars, bass, drums, backing vocals
Steve Weeks - Lyricist, lead vocals, percussion
When:
Save the Rock n Roll - Started in early 2000, completed early 2001
Why:
Recording original stuff in your own studio
is awesome! It's great to be able to give commercial quality recordings
to those who enjoy your music, whether you're 'big' or not.
What:
Mostly Rock music, with a hint of blues, funk and other
styles thrown in to make things interesting.
In
Short:
Influences: Kiss, Peter Frampton, P-Funk,Red
Hot Chili Peppers, John Hiatt
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Tim O'Brien
by Alessandro De Murtas
Featured
Songs:
Save
The Rock'n'Roll
You
Will Never Be Alone
HHmm.. What
is there to say? Until very recently, Steve and I were working on
the Save the Rock n Roll tracks, which we've completed and posted
on my website.
Making these songs was quite an experience; I learned a lot about
Ntrack, digital audio hardware, and what things one should do as
well as things not to do. My guitar playing days started
rather young, since then I've had plenty of time to develop a deep
love for playing music and the different instruments. Each is unique,
and requires a different
approach and attitude. I guess I'd have to rate guitar and piano
as favorites since they're so versatile. It's with one or the
other of these I write most of the songs whose music I compose.
I like percussion for the raw unbridled emotion one can emanate
forth with it. Music is certainly something very special, and once
it truly becomes a part of you, it's there to stay. Several years
back I heard Steve playing with another local band, and was impressed
with his talent for both writing good songs and
performing them with pizazz. Shortly thereafter we played together
in a local band a had a great time performing our tunes. Things
changing over time, Steve eventually married and moved to Texas.
Home studio recording was something I'd wanted to try for years,
but it was always much more expensive than I could afford. ADAT
and other formats were in the several-thousand dollar range for
just the multitrack machine. On top of that, one needed an 8 bus
mixer, some outboard effects, and a lot of other stuff to get a
working set up. It was more than I could handle at the time, and
analog cassette tape multitrackers are so frustrating! I can remember
many times using one and finding one track bleeding into another,
or something would happen and the tape would get 'eaten'.. Aaaaaugggh!!
About 2 years ago, someone told me about using Ntrack on a PC for
recording. To make a long story short, I tried it (albeit skeptically)
and it worked! Since then, I've lived in a digital world and been
able to improve the equipment here and there which makes for even
better recordings.
In the end, our short compilation of songs was done with Steve in
Texas, while I was in Alabama. During a telephone conversation one
day we realized collaboration on a project like this between two
home studios was indeed feasible, and started sending data tracks
back and forth; resulting in the 'Save the Rock and Roll' collection
of songs available on my website at http://home.hiwaay.net/~tjobrien
Tips and Tricks from Tim O'Brien
using n-Track Studio. |
[..] "When recording, always try to record your tracks
so they won't need any equalization. Make test recordings,
and if something sounds bad or muddy, don't resolve to fix
it in the mix or eq it.. Just record it over again! This will
go far toward avoiding phase problems and other artifacts
that tend to 'dull' an otherwise great mix."
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